


The Inquisition Needs a Lullaby

by caitirin



Series: The Chronicles of Teithranen Lavellan: Plant-Obsessed Soft-Hearted Inquisitor [21]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Children, Cute, Dorian has feelings, Established Relationship, Fluff, Insomnia, M/M, Schmoop, Short & Sweet, Sing-quisition, Skyhold has a nursery, Sweet, The Inquisitor is adorable, The Singquisition, Varric Tethras is a Good Friend, Varric knows everything, baaaabies, middle of the night, soft hearted inquisitor, teithranen lavellan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 16:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14139513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caitirin/pseuds/caitirin
Summary: Dorian goes looking for the Inquisitor when he finds him missing from the bed in the middle of the night and finds him in a most unlikely place.----“Looking for Lavellan.  He’s gone wandering. Have you seen him?”“This time of night he’s probably gone down to the nursery.”  Varric pointed towards a door.“The what?”“Nursery, you know, the place where they keep those tiny things that one day grow up into people.  Down by the infirmary.”I blinked at him.  “What in Thedas for?”Varric laughed at me.  “Well, since he’s maintained his girlish figure, I’m going out on a limb and guessing it’s not because he has a secret love child he’s not telling you about.”  Varric gave me a smirk and shook his head. “I think he just likes to help out with the babies. I hear some people find them cute.”“I’ve heard that rumor too.  Thank you, Varric. I’ll go and see if he’s there.”





	The Inquisition Needs a Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> My Inquistor's name is Teithranen Lavellan (Tei)

It was somewhere past midnight but before sunrise and I awoke to find the Inquisitor not curled up next to me.  Normally Tei’s rather like an adorable limpet once asleep, clasped fast to my side, unless he’s having insomnia.  It’s understandable with all the stress we’re all dealing with. I’ve had bouts of it myself, ever since I left Tevinter.  There’s many shitty things about my homeland, but we have the softest most luxurious sleeping arrangements. Wyvern down mattresses and the softest blankets and pillows.  Makes even the Inquisitor’s quarters look spartan. Granted, the way my dear simple Amatus keeps them, almost anything looks like luxury. Maybe if he’d let me redecorate we’d both sleep better.  

I’d rather that he just woke me when he can’t sleep.  I can divine all manner of exhausting activities to help him get back to sleep, but he doesn’t.  Prefers to wander the darkened and quiet halls of Skyhold in the wee hours. He’s not alone by any means, Skyhold never sleeps, not completely.  There’s always a quiet hum of people standing watch, working late, or enjoying company. So he’s not in any danger. Well not unless you count falling off something.  For someone supposedly sent by the Maker he’s a somewhat clumsy creature from time to time. 

Skyhold, even in the middle of the night, really does have just about everything you could need.  From a strictly essential standpoint at least, the nightlife and social scene leave something to be desired, and the fashion here... don’t get me started.  We’ve got an armory, kitchens that are always humming, bustling gardens, a working forge, places for chantry services, stables, and even a little tavern. Emphasis on the “little” part.  Their spirit selection (aside from Cole) is pretty typical. And dull.

I found Varric sitting at his favorite table by the fire.  Scribbling away in a notebook as he always seems to be when we don’t drag him off to the ass end of some wretched province to kill darkspawn.  I yawned and walked over to him.

He glanced up at me.  “Burning the midnight oil, Sparky?”  

“Looking for Lavellan.  He’s gone wandering. Have you seen him?”

“This time of night he’s probably gone down to the nursery.”  Varric pointed towards a door.

“The what?”

“Nursery, you know, the place where they keep those tiny things that one day grow up into people.  Down by the infirmary.”

I blinked at him.  “What in Thedas for?”

Varric laughed at me.  “Well, since he’s maintained his girlish figure, I’m going out on a limb and guessing it’s not because he has a secret love child he’s not telling you about.”  Varric gave me a smirk and shook his head. “I think he just likes to help out with the babies. I hear some people find them cute.”

“I’ve heard that rumor too.  Thank you, Varric. I’ll go and see if he’s there.”

I would never in a hundred years have guessed that we had a nursery.  In retrospect it seems obvious. Where there are wars there are people who seek comfort in each other’s arms and when those people have complementary plumbing sometimes nine months later, there is a third person.  And also where there are wars there are people who don’t return. Those third people have to go somewhere. And so we have a nursery with a small collection of motherless orphans and infants who our healers are trying to see thrive.

I made my way through the courtyard and to the infirmary.  One of the windows was open to the warm summer evening air, I walked up quietly and looked inside.

Just as Varric had said, he was there.  He was talking in inaudible tones with a Chantry sister who was patting a wailing infant on the back, trying to soothe it.  Tei offered to take the infant from her and she readily handed her over. The sister looked exhausted. She sank down into a rocking chair near the fire.

Tei cradled the baby in his arms and whispered to her.  He brushed his fingertips over her little stomach in a gentle swirling motion and I could just barely hear him start singing.  I swear to the Maker it wasn’t more than a few seconds before the wailing creature had fallen silent in his arms, one tiny hand clasping the fabric of his shirt.  Tei swayed back and forth on his heels, gently rocking the baby, rubbing her tummy and singing. Some sort of elvish lullabye I assume. Nothing I’d ever heard him sing before. Not totally surprising, our Inquisitor knows more songs than an old chantry chorister. 

I was struck by how peaceful it all felt.  And how completely right it seemed. I had always been told, since I was a boy, that one day I would grow up, marry the correctly chosen woman and produce little heirs of my own.  It was just part of the narrative for the son of a magister. I rejected all of that when I left home, cast it aside and never looked back. I could remember all too well the cold halls and dreary rooms of my childhood home, the cold civility between my parents.  They both cared for me, individually, in socially appropriate ways, but I could no more imagine one of my parents holding me like Tei was holding this unknown child. Magisters don’t  _ sing _ to their children.  What a ridiculous notion, it might make us soft and rot our brains or something.

I’d accepted that a family, children, anything of that nature wasn’t going to ever be a part of my life.  And it really hadn’t grieved me. But I’d never thought about it like this. Creating a family from love, with a person that I loved and who loved me had seemed less likely than my becoming the next Divine.  What if it could be different? What if we could-

“Are you going to hide outside that window all night?”

Tei’s soft voice startled me out of my thoughts.  I looked back in at him with a slightly guilty expression on my face.  “Just wondering where you’d gone. So heartless of you to abandon me, Amatus.”

He raised a finger to this lips to quiet me.  “Come on in.”

I made my way to the door and opened it as quietly as I could.  I think it might be the only door in Skyhold that doesn’t creak.  

“Cole oiled the hinges.”  Tei explained. “He said it made everyone opening the door feel terrible when it squeaked.  The babies don’t notice so much, but the nurses all did.”

“Thoughtful little, spirit, that Cole.”  I stood awkwardly inside the door. There were fifteen little bassinets all lined up, some held more than one infant.  I gestured at them. “Are they all...”

“Orphans?”  Tei nodded. “Yes.  During the day there are more, the Sisters watch over children whose parents are working here for us.”  He looked down at the wee one in his arms stroked the little girl’s cheek. She turned towards his hand and started sucking on his fingertip.  “Lots of their parents were lost at Haven.” 

I closed the distance between us and touched his face.  “Amatus, that wasn’t your-”

He nodded.  “I know. We all did the best that we could.  I just can’t help wishing.” He looked up at me with that heartbreaking smile that he has.  It undoes me, that face, how everything he’s feeling is just right there for anyone to see. Maker help him if he ever has to play The Game in earnest.  One night in Orlais wrecked him. He was an anxious mess after that ball, despite my best efforts. 

I moved to stand behind him so I could see the little one’s face better.  She was an elf, and her tiny pointed ears wiggled as she suckled his outstretched finger.  “What’s with her ears?”

He looked at them.  “What about them?”

“They’re... moving.”

“Oh, they do that when they’re eating, or self soothing like this.”  He looked back at me. “Don’t human babies do that?”

“No.  I’m pretty sure they don’t.  Is that another of those elf things?  Like the purring?” That one had caught me off guard.  The first time I heard Tei making strange rumbling sounds while sleeping on my chest I had woken him up, thinking he wasn’t breathing well.  He’d mumbled something about it being fine and I’d had to go and ask Solas about it the next day. If it weren’t so annoying I would really be impressed by the way he makes it seem like you’re an abject moron for not knowing something.  There’s any number of magisters back home who would pay a small fortune to be able to do that.

“Must be.  Iron Bull says he’s got dragons in his bloodline, maybe we elves have cats.”

I laughed and slipped my arms around his waist, resting my chin on his shoulder.  “I didn’t know you liked children.”

I could feel the smile on his face.  “I have a big family back at home. Lots of cousins and nieces and nephews.  I’ve always been good with kids. It just comes easy.” The baby’s ears stopped wiggling and Tei took his finger out of her mouth and wiped it on his shirt.

I made a face.  “Aren’t there cloths for that?”

He laughed.  “A little baby spit isn’t going to hurt.  Besides, it’s much less noxious than what’s usually getting on my clothes when we’re out on missions.”  He looked back at me. “What about you? Do you like children?”

“I wasn’t under the impression that we were discussing such things yet.”  I deflected while I gathered my thoughts. “Uncertain futures and all that.”

He had a bemused expression on his face.  “So are you saying that now would be a bad time to tell you that I’m pregnant?”

I half choked on a laugh.  “All right, there’s lots I don’t know about elves, but I’m pretty sure I know that’s not possible.  Despite our... various amorous activities.” I paused. He deserved a real answer. “To be honest, I’m not sure.  It was always part of the Big Family Plan. And now you’re making me rethink everything and I don’t know how I feel.  Which, thanks for all that, by the way. There’s not enough else going on.” I teased him. 

“Welcome to my life.”

The words were meant lightly, but they carried weight just the same.  “Looks like your charge is sleeping. How about we get you back to bed so you can see about some sleep of your own?”

He nodded.  He walked the infant over to her bassinet and every so carefully settled her in next to another babe.  He tucked the blanket around her and kissed her on the forehead. Watching him do that stirred something in me.  Just not in the way I normally expected. Maybe we  _ could  _ do this.  In some far off half imagined future long after this mess was settled.  I took him by the hand and led him back to his chambers. Hope could be dangerous, but maybe, just maybe, we could dream.  


End file.
